Thank you yy.
Are you able to describe how you sense the difference ? (if you don't want to, it's okay. ).

Peter

Not that I ever heard of this, now I understand better. To me this looks like a rights problem.
Did you apply the things mentioned in here : Vista Users ... prepare yourselves ... ?

If not, you *must* do it. But if so :

Did you ever drag the borders of each of the three panes ? I mean, there is this large space on the left; did you do that ?


Exactly what kind of crash is/was this ? (I know, you mentioned various, but I don't know which one belongs to this notice of yours).

And to be certain : You set Unattended. Played a bit Unattendedly, bring up XXHighEnd, at some times a crash occurs, and then the Unattended setting is reset to Attended (derived from Play and XXHighEnd stays) ?
Are you shure you don't encounter messages at startup of XXHighEnd ? There shouldn't be any, except right after a new install ...

I hope this all is not too confusing.
Peter

Hmm ... can you try the 0.9w-8a from here : w-8 Sound problem.
I sure hope that that one goes.

Hi Johan,

I don't see any Out of memory exception ??
If you can repeat this for Bill Frisell, what happens if you throw out the picture(s) you have on him ?

Note that you well can have an Out of memory error, but it is not what you showed.
Also, please try to tell exactly what you did, because this must be importand since you seem to be the only one having this ?

When you can't get out of the loop, you can try to delete !Played.dat from your XX folder. It can't harm to delete this.
A !CurrentlyPlaying.PLXX could also be a cause. You can delete that too (at emergencies).

If you are going to tell me the sequence of things, please also try to indicate how many seconds are between two actions of yours. Example :
Selected album ABC from the Gallery, nothing seems to happen, and I pressed load again within 5 seconds because nothing seemed to happen.
Then in 4 seonds I pressed Play, because really  nothing seemed to happen anymore.

Peter

Hi Bjorn,

Is it possible for you to post a picture of that Unattended thing ? I seem not to be able to get it otherwise.

Indeed please post separate problems in separate topics

If you plan to use your laptop as a "remote player" as you say, maybe think of RDC first;
1. You will be seeing your server on the laptop (and this will show Vista);
2. Theoretically that by itself degrades sound;
3. It could be via a Wifi connection;
4. Laptops are the WORST for music playback and good sound. Don't do it while you have the chance ! (but the RDC solution is ok by itself and can only be very smallish related to SQ).

From 2GB to 4GB will bring you 1GB net more ar most. Could be 400MB only. For XX useage that is.

Right now I really wouldn't know about pros or cons with Windows 7. I didn't look into it a single bit because of a little bit lack of time.
Maybe others know more. Sorry !
Peter

Hi jon,

I put out such notices after receiving one or two messages from users, just assuming they are dealing with this all as serious as I do. Or, it may happen that I come to the conclusion myself;
The fact that a newer version does not contain such a notice might mean I tried the improve the sound again, or otherwise the reason for the newer version should be obvious from the release notes concerned.

In this case the release notes of (I think) 0.9w-5 state explicitly that SQ should be equal or better than the late 0.9v versions, so that should be obvious (if you by accident read those release notes of course ).
But your miles may keep on varying, because right now people refer to an earlier 0.9w version as being better than 0.9w-8. This happens all the time, equally to that it happens once in a while that everybody agrees that "a" latest/new version superceeds all.

FYI : Not all SQ changes are intended, especially not those with worse SQ. On that matter, please note that sometimes much work/time is spent on solving bugs, and as you may recognize, listening for SQ changes could - or should take ages. And next I don't think it is justified to wait another week for sometimes important bugs solved, just to watch for SQ degradation. And, as in 99% of cases usually it is too late already, and the work done can't be undone, because ... well, I just won't spend another week of work on undoing things, which throws away two weeks including when I applied them. So this merely comes down to finding new tweaks on my side in order to restore SQ.
Besides all I need your input (the more the better) on *how* SQ changed, which makes me learn what actually happens (50% is still voodoo) and thus how to attack it + supercede it.

Give me another 5 years of your input and we'll all be in Walhalla. I'll spend the time !
HTH, Peter

Well, I got myself a Kemp Powerstation 75, and it dropped the tone by 30dB. You can say it is virtually gone.

There is something else which IMO is more imortant :

First off, what I am going to say next is from an engineering point of view - or just from the specs if you want, just common knowledge. However, I will try to explain and virtually visualise what actually happens with - and without such a device.

Ok, this is a mains sine re-generator. It is running on-line (hence no batteries involved) and dynamical surge needed from a poweramp is just passed on to the actual mains. On that matter I found no limiting in dynamics (so far -> must test longer but I think it's okay);

Without the device, in my situation anyway, the noise level coming from the mains is at -95dB. Note this figure is relative to microphone gain and microphone distance.
This -95dB is average, and millions of peaks per second are in the -85/-90dB range. Imagine a screen with a horizontal line with all dancing spikes ...
Now, at playing music there's this general horizontal line of "music spikes". Imagine a track which is actually full of sound and never silence, but there's the general beat (supported by drums etc.), and this line is dancing up and down, and the "ups" are on the beats. Generally you could say that on the beats the line goes 30dB up compared to in between the beats. So, those beats determine the peak SPL (Sound Pressure Level), and btw they will also determine the maximum digital level used.

They key to all is that in between the beats the music is playing right in the noise. Thus, at the -95dB level from my example (and microphone distance etc.).

I have seen this for years, and did not pay much attention to it, thinking it *must* be normal, and the noise shown is just as is and is always there. Besides that, it *must* be harmless, otherwise I would notice distortion or whatever.
Also, from the highly sensitive (horn) speaker you can hear a kind of sweet (white) noise, and thus this is what I saw on the screen.

Not so ...

With the Powerstation feeding the power amps, the noise has completely disappeared from the screen. I don't know how much it is down now, but it must be 15dB at least, because before the peaks were at -85dB and the screen (I use) doesn't go further than -100dB. Moving the mike into the speaker and setting mike gain to much still did not show the noise, so it could be way more down or not there at all (one day I may be measuring this more officially).

When I now look at the music playing, it is this "line" of music only. It is not surrounded by noise anymore. It is in its black own ...

Ehh, I said "Not so ...";
The sweet noise from the speaker is still there, and it is there as it was before (meaning : I can't hear a difference). As it only now appears *this* noise is not the noise I measure. Not before the Powerstation and not after.

Before people get confused : this is measuring by microphone right at the end of the chain, hence with everything involved which influences. This is nothing electrical, but the electrical noise has its influence to the result, and I'd say, the most highly. This rather strange way of measuring (which I started doing by kind of accident) unveiled IMO properties unknown. Properties which so far are still not clear to me exactly;

Something which shows as white noise, looks like not being white noise at all. I think I (kind of) proved that by that noise not being audible as such, but being able to capture by microphone anyway. Btw, note that this is not electrical noise in microphone or cable etc. because pointing away the microphone removes the noise from the screen.
It very well may be that what I appreciate as noise (or what the analysing software makes of it) is not noise with a density of, say, 10000 frequencies it occurs at per octave, but 10 or 20 or so only. At  least that is what the screen shows, but then the screen (the software) FFT's the signal and might not show what is actually there. It is thoughout the audible spectrum all over, and everywhere at the same level. This by itself would imply normal white noise, but I just don't believe it is.

Back to the beginning of this topic, it is as strange (ok, to me) that adding noise by connecting devices and connectors and all, cumulates in that 17.5KHz tone I have by accident (because of the pump). So again, add 3 dB or so of that "noise", and the tone goes up by 10dB easliy.


For those who run into this some additional background :

At measuring the Phasure NOS1 DAC it came out that this DAC is totally immune to whatever is hanging out on the mains. A little more specific : it is totally immune to that tone. It can't be found in any measurement. About the general noise I don't know, and this takes new measurements with and without the Powerstation.

Because the Powerstation hardly can bear the DAC (which just draws enough on its own to almost overload the Powerstation 75 (Watt), only the main amps are connected to the Powerstation (they use 33W x 4 at fully needed power) and at the levels I play this is okay;
The relevant information is that this proves that the tone comes into the system by means of the power amps.
Keep in mind, the tone is still there, but 30dB lower now. I did not work out whether the residu is from it leaking through the Powerstation, or whether it comes in via a backdoor like the DAC being connected to normal mains. This cannot be tested by normal means, because the tone is just visble now, and will disappear from the screen when devices are desconnected (less general noise = amplitude on the tone).


All 'n all a device like the Kemp Powerstation 75 sure does its work at measuring things, and I am sure this is all audible too (didn't play much attention to that yet). However, right now I am more interested in what is actually going on, and if I'm possibly on to something that might improve audio playback. The convenient thing is that I now can compare which theoretically makes it more easy to find out what it actually is I am measuring through microphone. It sure is nothing like HF noise, unless I'm looking at aliases of it. But I don't think I see aliases, because I would see patterns then.

The other day I have been working on this problem a full day, until I got dizzy from it. I could copy it my means of starting a 2 minute track followed by a 4 minute track follow by a 5 minute track, and right after the start of the 5 minute track it goes wrong. I must have run this sequence a 100 times that day. Then I was working for over an hour or so to setup things differently, and *still* the damn thing went wrong. I must be looking in a complete wrong direction. Then :

I added som additional log data to the program, and after that I spent another full hour on trying to let the thing go wrong as before, which it wouldn't anymore. This is very odd.

That additional log data is in 0.9w-8a. Would you, or anyone else having this problem, switch on Log Activities, and send me (or post here as attachment) the log files concerned ? That would be one XX file and generally two X3 files. Please watch the session times. Remember, this can only additionally help me with 0.9w-8a. You can find it here once again : w-8 Sound problem.

Thanks, and sorry for this stupid bug.
Peter

People with the same DACs should be able to find the same Q1 setting. But it still depends on the kind of music I think.
With my previous DAC I played a long time with 4, but always with classical/violins I kicked it up to 14. It was too obvious that violins were too thin at the lower levels. Otoh you could say that the lower levels (for my previous DAC) weren't good for anything, but I liked it anyway.
So I'm afraid this is personal.

Hi Bjorn, good to hear this all !


Yes.


Actually I don't understand what you mean by this. "Lower Unattended settings". Can you rephrase this ?

Peter

As long as you can measure that all stays bit perfect, it's okay.

Ok. Loaded 0.9v-6a and dug up Jamie Cullums.

Played the first track (the one you mentioned) in 0.9w-8 first. Didn't seem wrong.
Ran it again in 0.9v-6a and didn't really notice a difference apart from that I don't like his nasale voice. Ran it up till the 4th track.

Then switched to 0.9w-8 and started at track 5 (I'm no good in A-B-ing);
The first thing I noticed was more natural instruments. Mainly cymbals. Hmm ... could be the different track ...
Tried to pay attention for general problems (like you describe) but couldn't find those really.
Stopped this album after one or two more tracks (or maybe it was just finished).

Then hopped over to Little Feat (some 4 volume original track album);
Started with 0.9-v6a and Dixie Chicked. If you have it (just the original track, not live) you might look it up and hear the same as I did ...
I noticed some strange but interesting prrt prrt deliberately distorted sound coming from kind of mid left, like from a synth at the wrong place and time. It is because of the latter two that I noticed it.
Switched to 0.9w-8 and ran it again. Ha ! now that distortion appears to be a distortion guitar ! including string attack and all. It is very "short" played (like immediately putting your hand on the strings after the attack and without further decay).
For me this was and is enough to "ditch" 0.9v-6a.

I kept in running in 0.9w-8 and I seemed to notice that the livelyness and joy coming from Little Feat just isn't expressed by 0.9v-6a. Noticed that at Night and Day at switching back to 0.9v-6a once more. It just "does not work". Besides that, in Night and Day there are towards the end some peculiar overtone 1970 synth sounds which don't work out very good in 0.9v-6a.

So all 'n all I tend to disagree.

I was thinking about differences between DACs and all for an argument, but since it would be the first time to come up with such a thing, "officially" this can't be a reason.

Peter

Kuo-Yao,

Can you try the XXHighEnd-09-w8a zip in here : w-8 Sound problem. THat's only XXHighEnd.exe to install over your current folder.

I am 100% sure there still is a problem in there, but it might not be what you encounter.

Please let me know.
Peter

Never mind this. Sorry (see red text in that previous post).

I should heve referred to here : w-8 Sound problem.

No, I don't think this is an M-Audio driver problem. It looks like

a. a too much memory used problem;
b. a problem which is solved by now (in 0.9w-8 and possibly -7).

In either case, use the latest version and set "Split files at size" to 100MB.
If that still goes wrong in the same fashion, please let it know !

Peter